Rodrigo Hernández at P420

Artist: Rodrigo Hernández

Exhibition title: Anche di notte

Venue: P420, Bologna, Italy

Date: September 23 – November 12, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and P420, Bologna

P420 is pleased to present the solo exhibition Anche di notte (Also at night) by the Mexican artist Rodrigo Hernández (Mexico City, 1983) which for the third time brings newly produced works into the spaces of the gallery, pieces created precisely during his stay in Bologna, stimulated by the history and atmosphere of the city with particular reference to the collection of the Museo Civico Medievale, a place of great appeal for the artist.

Anche di notte is an exhibition that is intimate, luminous and nocturnal at the same time. The space of the gallery is filled by the silent world created by Hernández, whose stylized images delicately pervade the gaze of the visitor, who is immersed in a new dimension rich in imaginaries and symbols.

The first room contains one single painting that gives the exhibition its title, and a trompe-l’oeil wall painting recreating one of Bologna’s famous porticos in dialogue with a brass work portraying a bat, an animal that always suggests the nocturnal side of the world.

The second part of the show is composed of an installation of large works made with hand-hammered brass, whose figures and motifs are traced with soft lines, while the vibrant color of the brass adds luminosity and warmth: the golden background creates a devotional atmosphere that brings out the intimacy of the subjects. The result is a narrative path that wavers between references from a medieval universe and an intriguing setting suspended between dream and reality.

Hernández’s research has always focused on classic and modern arts and crafts, expressed through linguistic experimentation that combines simple materials (paper, wood, metal) with original, refined content (Japanese writing, imagery of Pre-Columbian art, European Modernism), reworked and reformulated with a very personal style and unexpected lightness. Hernández has developed a poetics in which elements from literature, art history and observation of the world converge in a new continuously evolving vocabulary, spoken from the surface of things. As if left alone to gaze at each other, figurative and abstract motifs unite and dialogue with each other, generating works that remind us of the unknown, yet present themselves to us with a warm familiarity.

Visitors to the exhibition will be accompanied with a critical essay by Stella Bottai.

Rodrigo Hernández studied visual arts at the La Esmeralda National School of Painting, Sculpture and Drawing in Mexico City, and completed his education at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Karlsruhe, in Karlsruhe, Germany, in the course taught by the artist Silvia Bächli. In 2014 he completed the post-graduate program at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, Netherlands. He currently lives and works in Mexico City.

His work is now on view in a solo exhibition at Museo Jumex in Mexico City. Recent solo shows include: Swiss Institute Contemporary Art di New York, US (2022); El espejo, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, Medellin, CO (2022); Petit-Music, Kohta, Helsinki, FI (2021); Moon Foulard, Culturgest, Porto, PT (2021); Nothing is Solid. Nothing can be held in my hand for long, Parcours, Art Basel, Basel, CH (2021); Passado, Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães, Guimarães, PT (2021); Reação em Cadeia, Moon Foulard, Fidelidade Arte, Lisbon, PT (2021); What is it that has etched itself into you?, Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, PT (2020); Rodrigo Hernández – Dampcloot, Galerie Fons Welters – Front Space, Amsterdam, NL (2020); A Moth to a Flame, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, USA (2020); ¿Qué escuchó cuando escucho el dis- currir del tiempo?, Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Mexico City (2019); Who loves you?, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, CH (2019); A Complete Unknown, Midway Contemporary, Minneapolis, US (2019); O mundo real não alça voo, Pivô, São Paulo, BR (2018); The gourd and the fish, Salts, Basel, CH (2018); Stelo, P420, Bologna, IT (2017).